Assessing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the performance indicators of safety management using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in an electricity industry

INTRODUCTION: The importance of evaluating the performance of different management systems in industries necessitates examining the performance of the Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) management system along with other management systems. Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a greater need than ever to assess the impact of the COVID-19 spread on the performance of the HSE management system compared to before this pandemic. This research aims to investigate safety performance indicators (SPIs) on the performance of the HSE management system and the impact of the COVID-19 spread on these indicators. METHODS: This cross-sectional, descriptive-analytical study was conducted to evaluate the influence of the COVID-19 outbreak on the safety performance to revise the industry safety index in an electricity distribution company using the multi-criteria decision-making method before and after the disease epidemic in three stages. In the first part, the safety indicators were identified according to the comprehensive safety indicators available in the industries and experts' opinions. In the second part, safety indicators were ranked, weighted, and prioritized using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). In the third part, these indicators were calculated and compared in the periods before and after the outbreak of COVID-19. RESULTS: Two main criteria, namely the “effectiveness criterion” and the “applicability/calculation criterion”, were identified for the evaluation and pairwise comparisons of performance indicators. Among these two criteria, the applicability/calculation criterion had higher priority and importance for the evaluation of indicators. Pairwise comparisons of the indicators indicated that the “accident frequency rate” and “safe T-factor” indicators (with weights of 0.238 and 0.023 respectively) had the highest and lowest priorities, respectively, for the assessment of organizational safety performance among the SPIs. CONCLUSION: Based on the calculations of the indicators and their analyses before and after the outbreak of COVID-19, the current status of the safety performance of the HSE unit was not significantly affected by this pandemic. However, the investigations carried out while collecting the data needed to calculate the indicators and evaluate the performance of this unit demonstrated that some indicators were not considered sufficiently in the studied electricity industry. Since conducting regular performance evaluations greatly impacts the achievement of continuous improvement, more attention should be paid to compiled indicators, which should be periodically assessed in the organization to achieve continuous improvement.